The Great Firewall- as great as the actual wall?

When reading James Fallows, "The Connection has been Reset," or hearing about the Chinese media in class, it wasn't as surprising as the media in other countries. I expected government ownership, control, and influence. If the majority of the countries we've examined so far are not separate from the government, free media in Communist China can hardly be expected.

Even when the technology and the process behind the Great Firewall, where certain information is filtered online, I wasn't shocked. China wants to keep their country stable, so it makes it extremely difficult for the people to access controversial or anti-government information. Of course, there are loopholes, or else the system wouldn't work.

What I would like to know is who is using proxy servers and VPNs to access forbidden information. Are the Chinese aware of the firewall? Do they feel restricted, or, as Fallows pointed out, are they happy with news mostly about China? I personally feel news of the entire world is overwhelming. Knowing every little bit is hard and almost unnecessary when you are looking at an individual life within a country of billions.

If there are people using the loopholes, there are obviously Chinese aware of the restrictions and interested enough to find the restricted information elsewhere. Who are these people? Is this a more educated part of the population? Are they old or young? How much are they risking by breaching the firewall?

These are the more interesting aspects of China's situation. No surprise about government's control. After all, it is a communist country. The people questioning the conventions are where the holes in the system exist.

Finding Reality

In both Issues and the News and in International Communications, I've been reading about media in the Middle East from both those countries and the United States. Journalists face an extreme amount of pressure in this area of the world. This pressure is coming from all different directions. Religious fundamentalists are trying to make themselves heard. Now groups like Al Quaeda don't have to fly planes into skyscrapers to gain media attention. Though in some of these countries, internet isn't as widely expanded as it is in the United States, it is still much easier to voice opinions. Mainstream media reaches the most viewers, listeners, and readers, so media networks, such as Al-Jazeera, GEO-TV in Pakistan, competing outlets in Dubai or Saudi Arabia, and the big Western media outlets, are constantly being pressured by governments, the people, and powerful groups fighting against specific governments. It just seems so hard to actually report "reality," whatever that is.

The direct reports from journalists in Iraq or the blogs from soldiers at war might be the closest things we can really get. My friend lost his life in Iraq. He was in contact with people from home, but, when he died, nobody ever really knew what happened to him. Just like Pakistan will never know exactly how many people were involved in the Red Mosque incident, there are millions of stories and realities we, as the audience outside this region of the world, will never truly understand.

Governments and groups are so concerned about their image in the media, it's nearly impossible to be honest. This is just one of the reasons it's hard to analyze the coverage of the Iraq War by any media outlet. Everyone has an agenda.

I don't know if I want to know the truth. One of the articles mentioned complaints about the lack of "good news" being reported from Iraq. This is the stupidest thing I've ever read. With war, there is no such thing as "good" news. War is horrible. People die. People are tortured. People lose the people they love. It's just too bad journalism isn't powerful enough to end this horrible human tradition. But, as I said, media really has enough responsibility and pressure to deal with right now without an added goal of changing humankind's worst quality.